


couch gag

by dumbasshoe (orphan_account)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dry Humping, F/M, First Times, Kissing, Sans gets DRONK, Sexual Tension, Touching, he's a little sadistic but who isnt, i guess technically he drinks in this fic but its not alcohol outright, i take back what i said earlier, sans likes to wind down with anime, they have a playful relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24348739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/dumbasshoe
Summary: It’s hard, he doesn't know how rough or painful he might be to Frisk because she wouldn't say anything and really, he’ll take everything she can give.It's kind of like the drinking and the lack of dreams; Sans can try and convince the both of them he's not so rough or dark or damaged, that he doesn't need to talk himself down every minute to enjoy these intimate moments with her in a less desperate way, or any other way Frisk needs. He’ll just make her believe that it doesn't rip him in half to be this slow and gentle, and when the perversion and obsession and oppressed passions start to show on his face, wicked and raw, he can just bury it into Frisk's shoulder.In whatever and every little thing he does----don't hurt her.
Relationships: Frisk/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 108





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi undertale fandom :) im new here (have not even finished the game and therefore my understandingof some things may be off sorry!) but I wanna make sure everyone is aware of the tags. Let's be nice guys♡

**10.20.1X**

  
  
  
  
  


It's too damn cold for a t-shirt and shorts, but Frisk still bounds down the stairs in those pajamas like she's not living in a world without a sun. She stubs her toe walking around the coffee table, and they both laugh, her making excuses about how dark it is. Sans scooches over a bit so she can collapse next to him on the couch.

**22:09**

Sans finds it funny in a way that doesn't mean humor, that when she speaks, her mouth moves in such delicate enunciations, pretty pout, she's trying very hard to hide her teeth. The smiles she hides behind shy hands when Sans makes too many, too-stupid puns are particularly his favorite. 

Her eyes, curious, nerved, they flit between Sans' staring ones and the skeletal hand raising to her head.

"Why the fascination with my hair?" Frisk asks. She shifts to criss-cross her legs more comfortably on the couch, even leans her neck forward so Sans can better play with her hair.

He shrugs. 

"Why not? It's nothing like my hair." 

She exhales a little laugh. He lets go of the strands he's run between his fingers, his curiosity leaving them tangled, and it pulls a bit when he takes his hand away.

"Ah," she winces.

"Sorry." 

He pets her head, less with the intention of fixing the hair he unsettled and more with the purpose of soothing her. Frisk's cheeks go red. Sans takes his hand off her. 

"Do you wanna watch something?" He asks, changing the subject. He leans forward for the remote, sets his feet up on the coffee table. 

"Yeah," she smiles, "that show again?"

"Which?" He changes channels, momentarily pauses when Frisk shifts once again to copy his sitting position, feet on the table.

"You know, the- that anime we were watching? With the girls?"

Sans mentally measures the size difference in their feet. He bumps her foot with his bony sock-foot and she bumps back playfully.

"The one with the cat and they're magic," she chuckles.

Their feet don't stop touching.

"Oh, _that_ one?" Sans grins. "Sure. Can't believe you never watched that on the surface."

Frisk scrunches her nose. "It wasn't something I would have put on for myself, I guess."

He puts the anime on. Yawns. It's late and cold and Frisk falls victim to contagious yawning, leaning her head onto his shoulder. Sans is impossibly endeared. 

They watch for a while-- or rather they look at the screen and stay quiet like they're both watching -- talking quietly in the dark, as though there's someone to be quiet for. They give commentary on the episode. Sometimes Frisk will poke Sans, but adamantly claim it was not her, so he'll nod in understanding, wait a solid minute. Then poke her back, hard, just beneath her ribs so as to rip a ticklish laugh from her. This, also, was not him.

It's around the second episode that Sans fully glances at Frisk and takes notice that she's inches closer than she was before he changed the channel.

His hand leaves his hoodie pocket to rest on his leg.

Frisk opens her mouth a few times. 

"Um..."

She spoke so quietly, the tv could've drowned her out if he wasn't so aware of her. 

"What's up?" He asks.

The kid is wringing her hands so subtly in the space between her knees, biting her lip the way she does when she's nervous, or about to cry.

"Sans…" 

Frisk works up the nerve to look him in the eye. 

His fingers twitch.

"I want--" she swallows. A split-second glance down at his teeth, no longer wide in a smile.

No smile at all. Sans is merely watching her pant, trip over words, there's _no way_ he could be enjoying the show she puts on with such beautiful exertion, the pain of making known her desires. Not that he has to guess what she's struggling to say.

She came to the couch for a reason, didn't she? And he wouldn't have ditched work if he didn't know with certainty (bordering on egotism) that she'd be here. 

Sans knows. He knows he's wearing too deadly serious an expression for how vulnerable she looks. Her small, flesh hand comes to rest like a flighty insect on one of his, the one on his thigh. His jaw clenches.

She leans into him just a little more, just enough. Close _enough._

"What is it you want?" Sans urges softly. If he tried he could count her lashes. She stares into the hollow glow of his eye-sockets, shifts even closer, until her knee is resting at the edge of his thigh. Sans sees his skull reflecting in her glazed eyes.

"Can we do that _thing_ again?" She finally blurts.

Morbid. Hungry.

Sans sort of smiles. He quickly takes up Frisk's hand in his own and grasps it, fingers folded into one another. His magic flares when she gasps. 

"What thing? You've gotta be specific."

Staring at their clasped hands with sweet, blown pupils, she shivers when he squeezes. Sans huffs.

"Th- the thing you did with your tongue."

The tv is still playing. It dances pink-tinged light across their figures, casts deep shadows. White noise. Dark room.

Sans _grins._

"Of course, kiddo. Come here."

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

This house used to be so quiet. 

Quiet--except for Pap's loud voice and the general chaos the brothers invited into their lives merely by being, but it still lacked a certain quality; a level of homey-cozy in white noise and warmth. 

They had routine. Pasta, dust, socks and pet rocks, work and snow and pops of color occasionally, maybe a night out, maybe that clarified the days into less of the blur they had become. Sans thought to count those days as the good ones. Pap kept him entertained okay enough. Pap and himself anyway. He liked to think that being on his own was the best it might ever get after he settled down in Snowdin, and really, really, that might've been okay.

The world used to be so quiet. 

And well, it's still quiet, but a different kind. Sans never thought he might become accustomed to contentment as a concept, but the fringe benefits of a human child's presence really forced the skeleton to new heights of effort. Effort to _be_ , be present, change himself-- or maybe, it's just the kid. It could be Frisk that's doing it to him, and he's just being changed through the subtleties of kind coercion. Either way.

Sans thinks the underground feels a bit brighter for not having a sun. A bit warmer for being an iceland. A bit more. He thinks the kid's to blame. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**10.17.1X**

  
  
  
  


It's funny to him that he always knows when Frisk is home-- he can _feel_ it, don't ask how. She sneaks about thinking she might _'get him this time!'_

He knows she's trying to be quiet, but she drops the key he and Pap copied for her while trying to unlock the door, and he can hear new ketchup bottles bob together in a plastic bag, his lazy smile grows a bit. Her burglar entrance is wasted, because he's on the couch, and she meets his already-staring eyes with hilarious disappointment.

"You're downstairs," she sighs.

" _You're_ downstairs," Sans quips. "Whatcha got there, kid?"

Frisk closes the door behind her, knob just above her head. She toes off her sneakers and sets the bag on the coffee table. "What where?"

"There."

"This?" She points to her key, sharing a hand with the bag. "This is a key."

_"Wow."_

Frisk scoffs a quiet laugh. She starts digging through the bag, grabbing the ketchup out of the air when Sans tries floating it out to meet his open hand. "Hey.."

Sans grins, "What? I'm just being _humerus._ "

Frisk tries not to crack a smile, but her hand raises to cover her mouth, telltale.

"What anime is this anyway?" She asks, stuffing her mirth away.

Sans summons the remote up from the coffee table instead of disrupting his perfect position on the couch, skull on the arm and slipper-feet resting on the one opposite. His lazy levels are _maxed_ out.

"Why don't you sit down? Crack open a cold one and find out?" Sans watches the kid eye the clearly unavailable couch. "Oh," he says loudly, pretending poorly to look surprised, "am I taking up too much space? You need me to move?"

Frisk nods, playing with her sleeve. She tends to fidget when she's immersed in a moment. When she's nervous, and playful, still so unused to being this way--- it doesn't matter that she's been down here a full year and some change, he sees it in her shy smile how rare the occasion she's had to be this loose with another person.

"How bone-headed of me. Here," he says, moving his feet, allowing her to sit. 

He wonders what her life above-ground must've been like for playfulness and friendship to be so foreign. 

In the moment before her bottom hits the cushion, Sans pushes his feet back into place and laughs when she gasps. "Oh, did you want me to stay there? Why didn't you say so."

"You're a jerk," Frisk smiles, slapping his feet back away so she can sit down. Her face is red.

"Actually, I'm a skeleton," he jokes. She sticks a finger in her mouth like she's pretending to vomit, and it makes him laugh again.

  
  
  
  
  


**23:23**

It's been two hours, and neither of them have moved. The ketchup is gone, the anime they're watching has reached the fight scene it builds up to at the end of every episode and they're both way too immersed when her stomach starts growling. Sans' ever present smile lessens. 

His focus blurs as he scratches his head, mentally sifts through the fridge, wonders what he can make her to eat as an afterthought of her kindness, thinks he really shouldn't be anyone's guardian except himself. Feels bad mostly. Pap's handled food for so long Sans will forget Frisk has organs until neglect makes them known.

"When is Papyrus coming home?" Frisk asks, biting her nails.

"He won't be back until morning," Sans answers. Maybe he could make salad. 

"How come?" She lets out a thick yawn.

Sans checks the wall clock, "It's only 11, why are you yawning?" Maybe nachos?

"Is he working overnight?"

"Yeah," Sans' smile widens a little, "guess you'll have to suffer an evening without his spaghetti."

"I don't know if I can make it," she deadpans, and Sans laughs. Then he feels bad again. Leaning back his head, his skull rolls to face her, close beside him on the small couch.

"You're hungry, yeah?" He asks, gently.

Frisk doesn't answer, but shakes her head _no._ Her stomach growls in giveaway.

"Got it. I'll make you something," he says, already standing up.

"I don't need you to--"

"I want to."

He doesn't see it with his eyes, but he feels Frisk sit there simmering with a face too warm for the weather outside, and wonders if maybe she's angry. Wonders if he did something. 

There's so many little encryptions around the emotions of humans-- _so many damn emotions--_ everytime Sans thought he might have learned something new about Frisk, ten more faces he'd never seen on her would flash across her features, transparency without definition. It rubbed him wrong that he could see her thoughts and not be able to understand them. It bothered him that he hadn't seen all her faces and feelings yet. So he would think. And think hard, too hard for too many hours out of the day, idle thoughts, useless Sans. 

While he worked. While he was falling asleep. While he was supposed to be watching anime with Frisk, but everytime the screen went dark for commercial break he'd catch her reflection in the tv screen and study that half-second reveal of her face, so focused with a finger in her mouth and teeth poised to bite.

She took everything seriously. 

No, that's not true, no, Sans revises his thought: everything they did together, she took seriously. She took _him_ seriously. Enjoyed his company and befriended his brother and sat and slept and laughed with him, but never called him on his oddities, on his faults-- and of these he had many. He wonders how aware of his bad habits she really is, or if naïveté concealed the worst of his depressive vices from her teenage mind. Has it really been so long since she got here? A year feels like a week. Sans doesn't remember which day it was when he stopped feeling so stagnant and unhappy.

The kid's to blame for that, too; making him look forward to new things. For example, making a salad at 11 at night. Or making salad.

Sans starts chopping vegetables and setting out bowls. Salad it is, and he'll steal some of Pap's cooked chicken for the pasta he'll inevitably make to go with.

The knife he cuts lettuce with is one of the only knives they have, much too large for simple vegetables. It's the one nearly the size of his ulna, he can see Frisk's feet in its reflection if he angles it right. 

There's another thing: the kid never showed fear of him. Sans slows down cutting veggies.

Not when they first met, not when Pap tried lockin' her up. Not when he comes out of the kitchen for a moment, holding the big knife up menacingly-- half out of curiosity, half out of a desire to get a reaction from her, scare her, make her afraid of him--! if only for her to _react_. 

These human emotions --- infallible, ineffable Frisk Feelings he's so brutally gut with every time she makes a face at him he can't magically interpret are really beginning to grate on his bones, and Sans is at full loss of what to make of his own feelings.

When Frisk finally takes notice of him, looming in the dark of the kitchen doorway, her eyes catch on his glare. The one glowing eye he intentionally uses on her, like she hadn't already seen it so many times in the year they'd known each other. But he uses it differently now; he stares at her, through her, as if to force her to take notice of the blood caked on the fingers he pokes her with, see the violence in his eye like a window to the past. 

As if to say, _be afraid._ Wide eyes roam over him, his hand, the knife. 

_Monster_ , he thinks. 

But she smiles brightly, almost in laughter. "You look scary." 

Sans blinks. 

"Um… thank you by the way. For making dinner." Her soft voice barely carries over the low-hum static volume of the tv.

And just like that her eyes are back on the screen, the commercials are over. Sans feels strange. He turns back to the cutting board less assured of himself than before. 

"Do you need any help with it?" She calls.

Even when he told her how many children he'd killed. She still sits too close to him on the couch and brings him snacks.

"Sure," he calls, smiling tone, but he definitely doesn't. 

All he needs are chopped vegetables, but the feeling of their proximities singling down to the same room gives Sans that familiar sweet pang at his soul he's accustomed to experiencing, something he's only felt a few times in his life; familiarity, family, home. He attributes this to the humanity in Frisk, and fails to consider it may have further meaning. Maybe this is on purpose.

And it's funny, it's so funny because Frisk is on her tiptoes to reach the sink to do old dishes, such a helpful fiend, and she's not a foot away from a severely capable murderer, a pile of bones, a lazy man, a bad adult. It's so funny the way she leans her head onto Sans, onto the arm he gently slices cucumber with. 

He's grinning. He's grinning because all of this is so damn _nonsensical_ , and he doesn't deserve the trust of this too-sweet human kid, but he'll take what he can get from Frisk if it's her. If it means more of her impression on the couch cushions in his home, if it means more of this warmth that sept into his bones and never left. He does not examine this any further. Maybe this is on purpose too.

They clean and cut and make salad in silence, the comfortable kind. Music from the tv plays them into a soft rhythm. 

Maybe this is just what humans are like. It could be just Frisk that does this to him, but that ties too many ends together for Sans to feel comfortable standing this close.

When the food's done, Sans hands her both bowls. "I'm gonna clean up real quick."

She takes the hint and disappears beyond the doorway, and Sans takes the opportunity to reflect.

It's a prettier possibility that this is just what humans do to monsters. Maybe this is what everyone is missing; the warmth of connection between species and race. And maybe, he thinks, washing the big knife, maybe things could be like this forever. Frisk and Sans, late dinners and couch gags. 

That would be cool. 

He dries his bony hands and heads back out to the living room, smiling wide when he sees Frisk laying across the entirety of the couch in imitation of him. Except she's smaller and shorter, so her feet don't nearly reach the other end.

"Hm. Wherever will I sit?" His hands park in his pockets.

Frisk is pretending to be absolutely immersed in the toothpaste commercial playing, her answer is slow and lax. "Huh? Did you say something?"

"Please, kid, an old man needs a place to rest his bones." His eyes trail down to her wiggling toes. He could move her so easily. 

"Do you have the required permits to sit here?"

"I believe so, ma'am."

Frisk hums. Sans can see the smile trying to work the corners of her mouth up. 

"Unfortunately, the couch offices are only open between the hours of--" 

She _explodes_ with laughter when Sans starts tickling her. She shuffles backwards into the couch arm she was just so relaxed against. "Please, _hah_ , no-!" 

He likes the sound of her laugh, likes the face she's making even more as her body crunches in on itself in an attempt to protect from his thin fingers. 

"Sorry I didn't catch that, could you repeat it?" He tickles her harder.

"Noo," she giggles painfully, "okay! okay, you can sit!"

Sans likes this. Time moves slowly. His bright, focused eyes photo-memorize her neck thrown back, her arms trying to push away his hands and failing pitifully. 

_"Sans,"_ she pleads. He squeezes her in the soft between her ribs and hips and she convulses with painful laughter. Sans huffs his own silent laugh.

When she has tears in her eyes, he finally lets up, sits back to watch her come down, pant her breaths. There's leftover chuckles that whispers from her. 

His eyes are glued to her--- teary, tired, happy, red. "Lemme know when you're ready for round two, huh?" He teases.

Frisk is still panting even when she sits upright, Sans is still staring when she reaches for her bowl of salad. 

She grins, still so shyly, looking at the tv just to avoid looking right at him. He wants her to.

His lazy gaze drops down to her mouth. A fork of salad is held up to the gate of her lips. 

"You are a sadist, Sans," she says, just before she takes a bite.

And Sans grins so big and wide and full-bodied that his eyes go dark, and when he laughs it's so hard his funnybone thrums. 

So _nonsensical._

She doesn't know how right she is.

They laugh together, eat their dinner, and Sans rustles her hair too affectionately for it to be playful. Frisk leans into it, into bony chest, and they stay like that, they stay like that.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Sans fades awake like his tv turns on, sizzling into light until the picture is clear. He finds himself staring at the living room ceiling. Funny...he never noticed the water stains. He doesn't even remember falling asleep. He groans as he lifts his head. _Cracks_ his neck _good_ and groans at that too, clears his throat, takes in his surroundings. 

Frisk's head is warm and heavy in his lap. 

He looks at her drooly face with an ounce of fondness, pound of discomfort. 

Why discomfort? He questions himself. Then he stops questioning his feelings to look around for his phone, because _awh shit,_ he has work today.

Sans wants to get his phone but refuses to wake Frisk. So again, with an excuse other than laziness, he abuses his telekinesis to get his phone from the table.

He's got a little less than an hour. The relief of excess time floods him with cozy warmth. So he lays back again, but curiosity lingers.

Sans looks down at Frisk. 

They really fell asleep together… watching anime and laughing 'til they couldn't breathe. The fondness in his expression is more than he can school for reputation's sake, but that's okay, she's asleep.

He can't remember the last time he slept with another person.

His hand comes to rest on her head. When she shifts a bit, he startles and removes it, but she stills and moans sleepy, shifts even closer into Sans' lap so her face is stuffed into his shirt. He lowers his hand again, and pets her hair.

Fuck, he loves this kid. He loves cats too. He could get a cat, maybe it would make him half as happy in a year as she makes him in a minute.

His head falls back and he's staring at the water stains again. As he cards fingers through her soft hair, he thinks humans are incredibly _warm_. This one specifically is a little radiator. If he had skin, would it burn to touch her?

The part of his mind that dreams, it's isolated to choreographed fantasies starring the kid in his lap and what it would be like to explore the surface world with her by his side. 

Sans wonders what her life must have been like above-ground, for her to ever have jumped down this hellhole.

He'll have to ask her sometime. For now, he's content to sit and be numb, thrum with warmth only corporeals can give. His fingers trace the frame of her face in kind lines, curl hair around her ear so he can make out her side profile previously hidden. 

She's drooling. Kind of a lot, but it makes him smile. There's even a little on his shirt. Another human detail he'll never quite get sick of, though certainly he'll need to do laundry if it keeps up. He caresses her cheek. 

_Fuck_ , he loves this kid. She sighs in her sleep and rolls over, a slow, blind adjustment in his lap so that she's on her back now, facing the ceiling. Sans holds in a chuckle at her funny face. A bony finger goes to wipe some of Frisk's drool away from her mouth--------

And Sans is hit with the overwhelming urge to put it in his own. 

His eyelights go dark. 

Motionless, the saliva dribbles down his finger. 

Faintly, he registers the tv is still playing from last night. Dimly he hears one of his five alarms on his phone start going off, and vaguely, he's aware that he's got somewhere important to be, but no, no, he doesn't-- he's standing in a room full of mirrors, he's sitting on his couch. It's not 9 in the morning but 9 at night, he's sitting on his couch, his favorite place with his favorite person, they're alone in the house, in the world---and somehow, faintly, dimly, vaguely, he’s much too aware that soon they won't be, because Pap gets home any minute.

The drool slides down the length of his index finger, leaving a shiny trail.

And Sans sits there. Stupid, motionless, lucid, blind. 

His jaw falls open. 

He produces a blue tongue.

He raises his wet finger to his mouth.

Papyrus walks through the front door.

"GOOD MORNING, SANS!" 

Sans jumps so hard he shoves the kid almost entirely off his lap.

"F-fuck, Pap! You scared me," Sans curses, catching her by the head before she can fall off the couch and it scares her awake. "Shoot, sorry kid."

His guilty hand wipes dry on the cushion behind his back.

"OH, MY BAD!" Papyrus sets bags down on the table by the door.

Sans watches Frisk acclimate to loud morning, laughs internally at the way her young eyes get squinty and blinky when she's woken up too early. She looks to Pap, then to Sans, sighs through her nose. "Your alarm is going off," Frisk moans, before lifting off him and curling up on the other end of the couch.

He looks at his phone like he'd forgotten it was there. Feels a bit colder with her weight off him.

"I'm gonna be late," Sans says to no one in particular. "Hey, I'm goin' to work. See ya bro," Sans salutes, making to stand.

"OH, I WANTED TO TELL YOU BOTH, I GOT OFF WORK AND BOUGHT INGREDIENTS FOR PASTA NIGHT!"

"Pasta night, huh? And when's that?"

"Every night," Frisk mumbles. Sans smiles. 

"WHY, EVERY NIGHT!" Pap laughs to himself. 

"Ooh- I might be busy that night," Sans _tsks,_ fake disappointment. His brother's face falls with real disappointment.

"BUT YOU'RE NEVER BUSY!"

"Oh that's not true," he defends. "I'm plenty busy."

"Watching anime and sitting very still," Frisk mumbles.

"Quiet, you."

"I'LL JUST LEAVE SOME FOOD FOR YOU IN THE FRIDGE, SANS," Pap calls from the kitchen. "I CAN'T BELIEVE UNDYNE ALLOWED ME TO WORK NIGHTS, I WAS SO UNPREPARED! BUT I WON'T LET EITHER OF YOU GO HUNGRY TONIGHT!"

Sans chuckles despite himself. "Sounds good bud." He watches his brother's shadow, busied in the kitchen. Chances a look at Frisk out the corner of his vision.

She's already looking at him. He looks away quickly. This is a mistake.

He clears his throat. "I'll see ya later," he calls, patting the bare foot beside him goodbye. Pap calls a farewell back, Sans grabs his phone, gets up, and zips up his hoodie a bit. 

"Cartoons and pasta tonight?" Frisk asks, sleepy-voiced.

"Definitely," he smiles without looking at her. In a blink he's gone.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**10.18.1X**

It's a slow day at work, snow day, but isn't it always? 

Sans is carving another chipped picture into the grainy wood of his sentry post. The sharp of his distal fingertip scratches a little 8-bit version of himself into soft wood, one of many character or goof drawings over the long months of nothingness he would carve to pass the time. There’s only so many breaks a guy can take without being noticed. Sans knows this from experience; apparently your superiors notice quickly when you're working less than you're break-taking. Who'd've thought.

More often lately though, he hasn't drawn much because Frisk will visit him at work to chat, or chastise him for not doing work, or play hide-and-seek or maybe put up a hypocritical snow-sans and head to Grillby's together for eats, but she had plans to visit Toriel today. Sometimes, even Pap will take a break from his diligent landmining to pop by, but Undyne gave him a 'special project' that Sans is half-certain involves cleaning and organizing Royal Guard housing, so his brother is sleeping during the day for now.

But if Sans were honest with himself - and he's not, -- what he nearly did this morning on impulse has stained into his skull something haunting. 

He's not gonna deal with that. Maybe if he ignores it longe enough, he'll forget about it entirely.

Maybe that would work, but actually if he thinks about it at all, for too long, he starts to feel Frisk's saliva coating his finger. So he draws a mini Grillby's into the wood and tries not to keep glancing at his other hand. At least he's halfway through his shift.

Sans' phone vibrates in his shorts' pocket then. He opens a message:

**Fartsk**

guess what

_13:43_

He smiles despite his shame.

what

_13:43_

i cleaned the house!

_13:45_

The message comes with a picture of the living room. The garbage, mess and tracked-in mud stains are gone. She even rearranged the furniture a bit, and it's so much cozier-looking than Sans could ever summon the energy to attempt, he feels grateful. 

oh no.

_13:47_

that garbage was there on purpose. you’ve gone and wrecked the delicate feng shui

_13:47_

Sans hits send and leans forward onto the wooden counter, feeling simultaneously like crap for leaving his socks and dishes everywhere and yet good about himself, because the fact Frisk feels comfortable enough in their home to do something like this-- and feel excited enough to tell him about it -- it's _nice_. 

His phone vibrates again:

oh no :( am i kicked out?

_13:50_

lucky for you, not yet.

_13:51_

Sans smiles. He looks forward to being off work. After Pap leaves for work tonight, it'll just be them again, all evening, all night. In his mind-theater, a snowball begins rolling down a hill. 

it looks really nice kid

_13:52_

Sans feels excited in a way that doesn't mean joyous. Maybe it's fear. The snowball is growing. 

thanks for that

_13:53_

Maybe it's just discomfort with himself. He well knows his flaws and moral ambiguity could be called one, but Frisk is…

i'm happy to do it. i pretty much live with you two by now, don't i?

_13:55_

i guess you're right

_13:55_

Frisk is so young. So young and sweet and so fucking untarnished, he thinks he shouldn't feel so guilty about sucking back some of her spit like a shot but he knows somewhere in his blue heart that it's brutally immoral. Frightening, it's reputably filthy to want that let alone anything more from her, and he started giving a fuck about these things when Frisk started sitting on his couch.

Sans sets his phone down, sets his head down too, and stares at the wood grain of the counter up close.

He can't do anything to hurt Frisk. Ever. But the opportunity to spend time with her thrushes the little snowball, now the size of a boulder so much faster down the hill, it's spinning downward so loud and dangerously he thinks for a second it might be real and checks the hills to be sure.

Bad Sans, he thinks. 

He comes to a decision; he'll just have to be more careful when it's just him and Frisk, because if this snowball continues the path it's headed on, he fears it'll crash. He'll just have to be more careful. It's simple. He lifts his head with resolve, and finds his phone screen alit with another message:

i have something to ask you later

_13:56_

hurry up and get home!

_13:56_

But suddenly, impossibly, Sans is hit with aniticipation so thick, the image of Frisk in his lap on the couch feels like the climax impact of a too-large snowball imploding straight into a wall.

i swear i'm trying kid

_13:57_

The next four hours slither by like a snail without sympathy. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come :>


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry guys i meant to update sooner but then i added a whole section to this and a few other chapters. This was originally 12k long (whoops) so i chunked it up. Enjoy this mini for now :>

With the convenience of instant travel Sans hardly sees the outside of his house, but after work, instead of going straight home, he goes by the store. Leaving, he says 'hi' to the people that say 'hi' to him as he brisks down the road, and tries to remember the last time he socialized with his neighbors on purpose. Since before Frisk lived here?

What's the difference, anyway? Why the leaning desire to walk the road? Sans absently rubs at the bottle in his pocket, crumbles the receipt in his other.

The rapid walk to his two-story compliments the snowstorm flaring on the horizon, reminds him he'll have to set the fireplace tonight. Not for himself, bones don't mind cold or hot. But Frisk reacts to it with shivers and little bumps on her skin that Sans has the desire to run his finger over when she gets them, except she always puts on a sweater.

When he gets home, he doesn't use the doorknob to get in. Sans couldn't say why but somehow turning the knob to push in would have been the straw to break the lazy skeleton's back. He's on the front porch, then he's in his room. 

Papyrus is home. Kitchen noises. 

Frisk is-- not home. Sans can't find her, actually, but she's somewhere nearby. Not that he's in a rush to see her. Not at all. He's content as dust to sit here in bed. That must be why his foot can't stop shaking, yeah. 

He sits there in discontent for as long as he can, until he can't and gets up to go by the kitchen. Before he does, he looks around the remodeled living room.

It's not too different from before. Which is great, because change sucks. But it's different _enough_ ; the couch is still in front of the tv, but now they're both angled so that nobody has to walk in front of it, set up on the wall adjacent to the stairs. Sans can't help but notice how much more… private, this cubby setup feels.

Interesting. Sans goes to the kitchen.

"Hey Pap," he greets, peeking at the pot on the stovetop. Less out of hunger or curiosity - because there's no way it wouldn't be noodles - and more out of a surplus of energy that has him more fidgety than normal. 

"SANS! WHEN DID YOU GET HOME?" His younger brother is whisking tomatoes in a steel bowl.

"Just now."

"DID YOU SEE THE HUMAN CLEANED THE HOUSE WHILE I WAS SLEEPING? IT LOOKS SO DIFFERENT. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE DID THAT FOR ME." Whole, uncooked tomatoes. "WHY CAN'T YOU CLEAN ONCE IN A WHILE?"

"I fear it would kill me," Sans shakes his head. "You can call her Frisk, ya know."

Pap's browbones furrow. His jaw opens, about to speak, then he shuts it. He looks down at his tomatoes. Sans studies his brother, wonders why he's suddenly serious.

"What's got your tongue?" He jokes.

Pap doesn't respond to it. But in a lower voice he asks, "Is Frisk happy staying here?"

Sans blinks. "I think so."

His brother turns to the stove, where noodles have been boiling for at least 20 minutes, puts the tomatoes into a new pot to heat.

"OF COURSE SHE IS! WE SHOULD GIVE HER A SPACE OF HER OWN. THAT WAY SHE'LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE!"

Sans is usually quick to shrug off the things his brother says but that last bit bumps around in his head uncomfortably.

"Leave? What do you mean?"

"WHAT IF SHE TAKES ONE OF THE CLOSETS? DO YOU THINK THAT WILL BE BIG ENOUGH?"

"Has she mentioned something about leaving?" Sans asks, almost casually, except for the way his fingers poke and play into the flames on the burner. 

Pap is too busy over-seasoning the tomato sauce to notice. "OF COURSE NOT."

"Why do you ask if she's happy here?"

Pap is about to reply but the sound of the door clicking open and the wind outside alerts both brothers that the girl they're talking about is home--

Sans feels something like an anvil drop in the space behind his ribcage. He stands very still in the kitchen. The tomatoes are on a heat too high and they're splattering over onto the stovetop.

What was Pap about to say?

Frisk is shivering when she pokes her head in. 

"HI FRISK!"

"Hello," she smiles.

Four of Sans' fingers rest on the burner, dipped into the open flames. It bothers him almost none, but he can see Frisk's reflection in the steel of the pot and her gaze is far more scalding. 

"Hey kid," he turns, smiling too wide. 

Her expression falls so subtly he wonders if he imagined it. "Hey," she repeats. "You're home a bit early."

"I hurried home," Sans replies.

She almost smiles, mashes her lips into a line instead. Looks at her feet, then back up, between the staring brothers. Her brows pinch in confusion, she clears her throat.

"When do you leave for work, Papyrus?"

He's draining the noodles now. "I LEAVE AT 8. LUCKY FOR YOU, I MADE SPAGHETTI FOR WHEN I'M GONE SO YOU DON'T GO HUNGRY," Pap snickers. 

"What were you up to?" Sans asks her, leaning back onto the kitchen counter.

"Oh," she breaks into a smile, "I was playing with Lesser and Greater. But then it got too cold, so," she rubs her arms in emphasis, "I'm back." Goosebumps. 

Her hands tuck into the flesh between her underarm and where her small chest protrudes through her shirt. Sans' gaze catches on her hair, short and dark and covered in so many snowflakes, trails over her soft face, red cheeks, red nose, her eyes are on Papyrus as he cooks. Sans has no body to warm her with but he feels the instinct to do so all the same. His fingers twitch where he's shoved them into his pockets.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Sans excuses himself, patting his brother on the back as he leaves. "Have a good night at work, bro." 

"I DEFINITELY WILL!"

Sans starts up the stairs. Frisk follows him out of the kitchen.

"Sans?"

He's already halfway up when she calls him. He turns around, looks down at her. Doesn't miss the way she's lowered her voice, or how many steps she ascends so that they're no more than a stair away from each other.

She's breathing. This is normal.

"What's up?" He asks, voice cool and even as ever. 

The way she's breathing, is not.

Frisk's eyes drop to her feet. Her hands have clasped in a subtle effort to ground herself, Sans notices, before his eyes glue to her lips, trying so hard to work around the words she can't get out. 

"What is it?" he asks again, more gently. He decides he quite likes the look of them. "Is something wrong?" Maybe not so much lips themselves, but because they're hers. 

"No," she shakes her head. "Well..." She continues standing there, two steps down, fidgeting and fumbling. The suspense adds to the edge Sans has already been on since this morning. Her last messages come to mind. 

Frisk looks up suddenly.

"Are you mad at me?" She blurts. 

Sans blinks. Studies her face. Mouth open, eyes big. Her cheeks play a fantastic story of color and cold, her brows furrowed in pain or worry or something else. Something he hasn't seen yet.

"Did I do something wrong?" She adds.

The reply tumbles out of him before he even thinks to edit:

" _No_ , no way. Are you mad at _me_ ?" His own brows come together at his own words, how _telling_ they sounded leaving his mouth. "Why do you ask, kid?" He revises.

She half-laughs, "I thought," Frisk leans onto the bannister, glancing back at the kitchen. Sans does too, making sure his brother is still busy singing too loud as he cleans. 

"Yeah..?"

"You seemed, _off_ today."

Sans says nothing.

"I thought, maybe it was because I fell asleep on you and made you late for work."

Something like moths have burst to life and begun fluttering in the space behind his ribcage. 

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't avoiding me because of it."

Sans' mouth curls in a smile. He looks her in the eye, says, "That ain't it. Don't worry about any of that, I wasn't mad."

She nods, "Okay…"

"But uh..." Sans turns around and resumes up the stairs, appreciative of her stunted following like a confused kitten. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

"Huh?"

He stops near his door, too aware that his brother will have to leave soon and he'll be alone in this house with Frisk and his sins, his own self-control.

"You said there was something you wanted to ask me earlier." He faces the wood.

"Oh," she breathes. Her face warms behind him and Sans thinks he might've asked the wrong question. "I must've forgotten," she shrugs.

He hums. 

"Um… are we still on for later?" 

Sans smiles bigger, opens his door, steps inside. Hand on the knob, he tells her, "Hell yeah." And with a wink his door is closed. 

"I'll be down after I shower," he says from the other side. 

He feels Frisk smile. Feels her bouncy feet bounding down the stairs and the plush of her pounce onto unsuspecting couch cushions.

He stands there for a while, reads into the conversation they had-- far too into it. Thinks _much too hard_ about the insecurity implied, the subtext of her nerves, 

the _hope_ she carried like a fragile bird in the hands she wrung, like Sans might go back on his word. Like she'd somehow messed up so irreversibly Sans now wanted nothing to do with her.

And shamefully, horribly

Sans found himself aroused.

Found himself _impossibly_ endeared to her, more than he already was, and wasn't that enough? The affection she pulled out of him pooled like lava in the place he guessed his guts would be.

Sans pants without lungs. He's still standing in front of the door.

Is it her idolization of him? Her subtle, dripping desperation to hold onto the closest friend she had in a world lacking warmth? Maybe it's the mark of trauma he can taste about her --- the sad but clear quality in her malleable behavior that's afforded him the realization, like _oh,_ _you're broken too_ \--- and maybe, he knew that all along, maybe, surely;

But maybe he'll keep that to himself. Maybe he'll forget all the agreements he made with himself this afternoon.

His previous discomfort about this snowballing situation has withered to a whispering voice of reason, but his skull is empty, so the acoustic echo of Frisk's hesitant breaths drown it out. 

Sans turns on the water. He brings the bottle of syrup he bought with him into the shower.

What was Frisk going to ask? 

He wonders--- no, he _knows_ Frisk has feelings for him. He _feels_ it, don't ask how. 

The bathroom fogs up nearly immediately with how much steam rises, the knob is turned all the way left. Sans is finding he prefers heat.

What was Frisk going to ask?

That's what she needs, he reasons, staring at his reflection in the metal of his cloudy showerhead; someone to ask questions. Maybe he'll ask Frisk his own pressing questions one day. Yeah, maybe. Maybe soon. Maybe tonight.

If not for answers, then just to see Frisk's reaction.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't noticed by now, im NO GOOD with puns. God i try T-T but please accept lots of sarcasm where i fall short because jeez i cant come up with this shit.  
> Im not my grandfather. I didnt get the bad pun gene and ive never lamented the fact until now

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a kudos and/or a comment if you like it so far!! It inspires me and lets me know how many people are at this frans party.  
> I have most of this written and im excited to finish it. This is such a compelling ship to write.  
> Next update: 5.30


End file.
